Colours
by Flint and Feather
Summary: A one-shot exploring Vincent's thoughts as a simple candle inspires him to evaluate the varying shades of his world...Please read and review.


**A/N: This is simply an imaginative look into the mind of Vincent. Hope it's pleasing!**

**Disclaimer: "Beauty and the Beast" and characters named belong solely to Ron Koslow.**

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The broad shouldered figure of Vincent Wells again prepared to bend to the task of confiding in his still, ever available companion. He folded the sleeves of his loose white cotton shirt higher over his powerfully muscled forearms and lit four candles at each side of a well handled leather bound journal, the patient vessel for the outpourings of his heart, mind and soul, committed to its pages with its writer's caring diligence.

But, taking up his pen, Vincent hesitated as he swept his eyes across the open book, suddenly struck by the contrast of the lettered left page to its empty, pristine partner on the right. This, he covered with his golden furred hand, his fingertips lightly brushing the surface. He brought his hand up to his lips and frowned into the flickering flame of the nearest candle, allowing himself to become absorbed in the farther reaching comparisons stirred by the journal. Black ink brought into relief the whiteness of the paper, where was preserved a past event, woven through yesterday's scripted dream. Staring beyond the tiny illumination into the relative gloom of his surroundings, he imagined them flooded with the Above's daytime ambient light, and knew that could never be. Shelved brass and glass objects around him captured miniscule gleams of candlelight, appearing as single orbs staring back motionless through the half dark.

Vincent was so reminded of wild nature's grand design in the perfection of all its creatures, reflecting first upon the colours devised to equip each, and him. Cruel, abominable interference had conferred upon his man's body, fangs, claws, wheaten soft fur and a flowing regal mane, but had not erased the humanity in his deeply set, tilted blue eyes. A blended being who would never see another home such as the African veldt, the part of him that originated there had long been evolved to lie in ambush, camouflaged from prey by the golden thickets of tall grasses. The enormous strength and agility of that predator belonged to him, though its unbridled cunning and free ferocity was tightly repressed by the self which he presented to his limited world. For the protection of all around him, it was responsible and necessary for Vincent to know intimately the full potential of his unique dual heritage.

This he had studied with interest – the wisdom of survival in nature, in which the largest of living things seemed to be generally clothed in neutral tones, like the fair tan of the lion, the gray of the elephant, the dun olive of the crocodiles. Prey animals were even so, far from helpless, since the vivid stripes of the zebra and mottled patterns of the giraffe, were meant to confuse the eye of the hunter. Musing analytically, Vincent was unburdened by any self recrimination. Going on, he knew it was also true, or had been, of environments all over the world. All healthy ground was meant to be rich with brilliant green, giving life to plants and every species of tree, with trunks in various brown hues, crowned with lush, sunseeking foliage. And by the same reasoning, certain of the smallest of beings, birds and flowers, paraded as bright jewels for the attraction of mates and pollinators. The sky, the ever-changeable mantle over all, he had seen in glorious tints of blue, shades of troubled gray and star-strewn velvet black. And like the yellow candle flame that had sent him on his mind's journey, the sunset too, was gilt fire, painting its nightly farewell across the firmament. This beauty he craved, so regenerative to his spirit, sorrowing that his eyes could only drink them in as he concealed himself behind soulless man made blocks and steel.

But his mind's wandering returned from a distant continent and Central Park to the dim calm of his chamber, where his journal lay still awaiting on the table before him. Vincent closed the book and snatched up his cloak. He had once heard someone speak the term, 'a beige life', in a disparaging tone. It had held no meaning for him then, and none now. It wouldn't be long until the true colours of his heart appeared before him, in the fair golden brown of Catherine's shining hair, the loving, lively green of her eyes, and the blush rose of her smiling lips.


End file.
